At present, there are a good many mature dynamic radio resources scheduling methods.
For instance, the maximum throughput criterion algorithm, which dynamically schedules radio resources based on real-time channel quality. It always allocates each sub-carrier to users with the best channel quality. Apparently, this algorithm can acquire the highest throughput at the air interface theoretically. However, this method is weak in fairness. Some users with relatively bad channel quality might not get service for a long time or even for ever. Meanwhile, this dynamic resources scheduling method also fails to take into full consideration the respective characteristics of different services. In particular, for streaming media services, at some moment, perhaps the buffer of a certain user with bad channel quality will run out while data in the buffer of another user with good channel quality can still keep streaming media services uninterrupted for a considerable long time. In this case, streaming media services of users with bad channel quality will probably be interrupted if sub-carriers are still allocated to users with good channel quality in accordance with the maximum throughput criterion.
The proportional fair criterion algorithm, another example of the dynamic radio resources scheduling method, makes improvements upon the above-described maximum throughput criterion algorithm. Admittedly, this algorithm ensures that users with bad channel quality can also get some services, but it fails to consider the characteristics of different services either.
In summary, none of the existing radio resources scheduling technologies takes into full account or makes full use of the characteristics of streaming media services. Therefore, it is extremely crucial to streaming media services, which are very likely to be widely applied in a future mobile communication system, to find a method suitable for dynamically scheduling resources.